The morning after the day before

What a fantastic result! After spending 14 hours at ExCel yesterday for the vote counting, it was so pleasing to see Boris win the mayoralty.

As for me I am well and truly shattered, the last two days have long, and at some points during the count hard, but it was all worth while. The live blogging didn't happen as I had planned, as I'm not blessed with a blackberry, and the thought of text/emailing put me off in the end, so I just ended up feeding Dizzy with a few tit bits of info here and there. Although he must have had a number of sources at the count, as he started feeding info back to me. Mind you, I nearly dropped myself in it right at the end of the night when I was chatting to a very nice lady from Sky News, and jokingly said "I bet that some of the Brixton base files were in the basement of City Hall when it flooded". She nearly believed me, so that will teach me not to be flippant around a nice looking journo.

Anyway, I digress. Nationally the results were bad, but it wasn't until Sky had changed from saying that Labour had "a bad night" to having a "disastrous night" that we saw the scale of unpopularity in Gordon Brown, and the public vote "FOR" the tories, and not just "not voting" for Labour.

The results at ExCel also spoke volumes, with some very unexpected announcements. The biggest surprise was in Bexley & Bromley, which really set the tone for the evening. Prior to first declaration of the evening I finally met fellow blogger James Cleverly and even though it was obvious from the count progress graph that he would win, it was the sheer scale of it that was the surprise. James won with a stonking 75,237 majority! (Congratulations James!) It was at that point that the realisation that Boris really was going to win starting to set in.

This was followed with other expected holds for both Labour and the Tories, in City & East and Havering & Redbridge respectively. Although, despite being the first to finish counting there were quite a few arguments over ballot papers from the BNP members, which caused the declaration to be delayed, and then delayed again. But then again the BNP had making assumptions that there had been some deliberate spoiling of papers to prevent their votes for most of the day. I think it was a green party member (I could be wrong as I couldn't quite see the party affiliation on their security pass) that whispered that it was "probably because their supporters couldn't work out how to put a cross in the box". Again I drift from the point.

So that left Greenwich and Lewisham, the constituency that I had put in 13 hours of electioneering the day before. Now to set the scene, it's a safe Labour set, there's no two ways around that. Which is why the leader of the London Labour party holds it. But the shock for us it that only delivered around a 12000 vote win for Ken! That should not have happened. The pleasing thing to see was our candidate Andy Jennings not only poll brilliantly with 37,040 (Congratulations Andy), but also destroy the UKIP vote, after the vile campaign that their candidate ran. He got what he deserved, and hopefully will never darken our doorsteps again. As Len Duvall himself said in his acceptance speech "there is no place for that in politics". I would even go further than that and say, "there is no place that - full stop".

As for Boris, I still admit I did have initial misgivings, and I'm happy to say he proved me very very wrong. He ran a very positive campaign and clearly showed that he was more than able to take on the Mayoralty. His acceptance speech was very good, and very complimentary to Ken, and you could tell he meant what he said.

So here's looking forward to the next four years. As for me, I'm going to rest my poor weary feet before I start planning for the next election, whenever that is.

Continuing on.....

Just seen another Ken advert in this morning's Metro, and like yesterday it was just another swipe at Boris. The difference is clear Boris, and all of the other candidates still standing for that matter will tell you their plans for London. Ken just has eight words to offer.

Doesn't that tell you why Ken must go.

And the final countdown begins

With only two days left of campaigning the London candidates, in my opinion, are really starting to show their true colours.

Ken's campaigns is hitting new lows, even by his standards. He knows the electorate don't like his policies, so he isn't even bothering to try and fight this election on them. Instead he is using the old NuLabour scare tactics. The usual they will cut your services, and their polices will be a threat to national security. Yes that old tripe is surfacing again. Just like Tony Blair with the old retoric of "if we don't have id cards the security of the nation is at risk", Ken is try the same by saying that Boris is a threat to London.

The contrast is the Boris is holding his own, and campaigning on issues. He is showing his ideas, unfortunately all of good ones are being openly pinched by Ken, but that isn't surprising as Labour are doing that nationally, i.e. inheritance tax. But, he hasn't lowered himself to Ken's level of scaring the voters. In last night's Evening Standard even I was astounded at the lengths that some of his supporters are stooping to. But like I said, it's an old tactic which was continued this morning with an advert in the Metro, and the "Don't risk London" slogan. If the electorate don't want to risk London, then they definetly not vote for Ken.

But, for me, one key indicator of the transformation of Boris from an MP, to real potential as Mayor was shown in last nights Sky News Tv debate. He simply looked fresh, sounded passionate, whereas Ken looked tired and sounded awfully repetitive. The only counter arguement he had was to attack Boris personally.

Is that really how we want our mayor to conduct themselves, to be pasionate about London, or simply to slag off their opponents?

The Sun turns on Labour!

For the paper that claims it wins elections, by throwing their weight behind the side that looks like winning, then Trevor Kavanagh's column this morning will hardly make pleasant reading for Gordon Brown. Or Ken Livingstone for that matter.

In his column Trevor makes some harsh, but true, statements in a rather un-Sun-like way. He first of all states the bloody obvious in that Gordon has "botched just about every decision he’s taken since assuming office — from Northern Rock and the EU Constitution to the 10p tax fiasco and Iraq".

Trevor's rather blunt answer is to give Labour "a kick in the ballots". Next week London Assembly, and a third of council seats in England and Wales will be up for grabs. But the biggest prixe for the tories, and most humiliating for Gordon Brown if he lost, is that of the London Mayoralty. If Ken loses on a Labour ticket then we could see the Labour party start to implode and break ranks, with the prospect of a leadership challenge a real possibility. Now that really would be a message to "old Clunking Fist", the taxer of the masses.

As Trevor quite rightly points out: "Labour has been “investing” like drunken sailors. They spent £1,400BILLION in the last ten years — twice as much as in the previous decade. Yet our capital city resembles bankrupt New York in the Eighties, with roads like ploughed fields and litter-strewn streets decorated with graffiti. We deserve better from our politicians — nationally and locally. So don’t sit at home moaning next week. Get out and vote. Give the beggars a kick where it hurts. In the ballot box."

Trevor, for once I totally agree with you.

Labour's day of gaffs: Part One

Ken Livingstone admits that his best achievment was smashing New Labour. I bet that'll will go down well with Labour activists.

Tube strike's root cause

Two of the tube's two trade unions have just announced that they will be calling a three day strike over safety, from 6th April. Which just happend to be at the start of the London Election campaign.

But the roots of this dispute, which will affect all of London yet again, has one culprit. Basically the arguements are over mobile supervision of staff on the new stations operated by London Underground. Which prior to the beginning of the year were operated by Silverlink.

These stations were nine times out of ten unmanned. But thanks to Ken's wonderful new London Overground system, he took over the line, and gave these stations to the Underground. The problem is that to suddenly change the operating nature of these stations (Network Rail and LU have quite different operating procedures), is causing this dispute.

Now, I'm not going to get involved in the who's right who's wrong arguement, but this whole situation was brought about by Ken's desire for national rail lines to be brought under his control. This dream, and the practicalities of realising it are the root cause of this strike announcement.

It was Ken that pissed off the unions by closing the East London line, and making it part of the Overground. It is Ken's Overground lines that are the root cause of the problem. The tube staff that go on strike will get the flack, the tube managers will be blamed. But it was Ken's ideology that set this ball rolling.

Is it any wonder that he hasn't said anything yet. After all a tube strike in an election campaign will hardly go down well.

Ken's "don't vote for him" campaign

The London Election campaign hasn't even officially begun yet, but that hasn't stopped Ken conitnuing with his anti-Boris rants. It has bee clear from the outset that he intends to fight this campaign on a "don't vote for him" standpoint.

This couldn't be clearer from his first election posters, that I spotted on the way home from work last night. The billboard contains just three lines "Don't vote for the loose cannon, Don't vote for the other one, Vote for London". From this poster alone it's obvious that ken doesn't have anything new to offer, the only way he can get votes is to bad mouth the other two.

But, that is all so far that I have seen from his campaign, nothing about his policies just personal remarks about the other two candidates. The majority of those directed at Boris. Is it any wonder that Boris's opinion poll rating is still climbing, and Ken's is heading the other way.

Ken launches manifesto, and is then accused of sleaze.

As the campaigns in London were formally launched, current incumbent Ken Livingstone launched into a verbal tirade about Boris. Instead of a "look at me i'm brilliant" speech, which I would have expected, all I heard was Boris thois, and Boris that. In fact, he mentioned Boris' name 13 times!

So basically, if yesterday's rant is anything to go by, his entire manifesto is to hurl abuse at Boris. Now, I freely admit that when Boris first put his name forward I was concerned. But his campaign has been a real eye opener about the man. He has gone through his Parliamentary life as this bumbling fool, but his campaign has shown that there is more to him. Boris has upped his game, and shown that he can act like a leader. So much so though, that I will be out campaigning for him over the next few weeks.

In contrast, Ken looks tired, sounds tired, and can only slate Boris instead of praising his achievements. Well, achievements that he thinks that he has had anyway.

But it doesn't stop that there. After months of accusations of sleaze surrounding on of lackies, Lee Jasper, Ken himself is finding himself subject to accusations, not even 24 hours into his re-election bid. Last night, as I was leaving a comment on another blog, I saw that Conservative Home were running a story about Ken concealing donations, and under investigation by the Electoral Commission. This story has also been reported by the Times, but that accuses Ken of not listing "a single donation on the Electoral Commission website since he became Mayor of London eight years ago".

Not the sort of thing you want at the start of a re-election bid, but par for the course when it comes to Ken. Obviously he knows and best, everybody else is a racist and a "sanctimonius hypocrit". His rants are starting to sound like Heather Mills', and Al Fayad's paranoid rants.

Ken has always professed to be different to the national Labour party, but by [allegedly] concealing donations, having at team of cronies, and failing to sack them despite a tonne of sleaze allegations against them, he has proved that really is no better.

If all Ken can offer is personal rant's about his opponents, and sleaze allegations, what benefit would that be to London? It rather contradicts his own arguements.

Who's that knocking at the door?

The BBC are currently reporting that one man has been arrested, and three homes have been raided by police investigating the fraud allegations surrounding Lee Jasper, the former race relations aide to London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

This will make interesting viewing on the local tv news tonight.

Good Riddance

At long last Ken's key crony has decided to resign. Now I must admit when I first heard this news last I was quite pleased. However, I then started to think, why now?

Ken has been leading the GLA much like Gordon Brown runs the cabinet, with the failure to deal with incompetence, and allowing members of their repective teams to continue in their posts despite accusations of sleaze and corruption. So it hasn't been surprising that Ken has stuck by his man, it's the Labour way after all. Unlike the Tories who not only sack them, but kick them out of the party as is in the case of Derek Conway. Anyway, I digress.

The allegations around Lee Jasper have been circulating around City Hall for quite some time, so why now? My first thoughts were that the Mayoral elections are officially due to start in a couple of weeks, and this issue has been like hanging around Livingstone's neck like an Albatross. It would have massively damaged his campaign. But then I started thinking, and remembered that Ken had challenged the London Assembly members to put the allegations to Lee Jasper, and question him on them, which he was due to do this week.

What perfect timing for a resignation, now Jasper is no longer an employee of City Hall, he no longer has to face that questioning, how very convienient. It was bad enough that Ken failed to show any leadership and kick the man out himself, but the timing of this resignation will just add more fuel to the fire, with people wondering what he had to hide.

At least he's gone though.

Deliberately missing the point

Ken Livingstone knows that he has a fight on his hands in May, and Boris is doing a perfect job at the moment of highlighting, not only the failures of Livingstone, but also his unwillingness to action those.

Boris has been on the attack over Ken's yoof oyster card policy. I have said a number of times on this blog that anti-social behaviour by teenagers, and some even younger, has soared. The idea of giving free travel was sound enough, but the impact is something that Ken will not admit to. Night after night groups of kids are roaming the bus network, playing their mobile phones excessively loudly, causing a nuisance, and generally making it unpleasant getting a bus at night. But, that is not to mention the rise in graffiti aswell, from tagging the buses.

Now, we were promised by Ken that anyone committing these crimes/misdemeanours would have their oyster cards taken from them. The fact is this does not happen, and even if it did when you have a group of yoofs that pile on to a bus with none of them showing their passes, it takes a very brave driver to pull them up and kick them off the bus. As happened on my journey home last night.

However, Boris's plan has an olive branch. If you lose you pass, you can get it back with a bit of voluntary service. Now, getting kids to be more of a part of a community, and making them have a bit of social responsibility is not a bad idea. But this is ridiculed by Team Ken, supposedly because it would stop the getting something for nothing socialist ideal.

Plus his plan doesn't stop there with the promise of a new CCTV system for some of the most troublesome routes. This idea is knocked by Team Ken, on the grounds of cost. Yes you did read that right. TfL spends millions on consultants, and the Mayor's team cannot see how they could find the money. Here's a suggestion, how about not having trips to Cuba, and Venezuela, to see you left of the left wing buddies.

The fact is that Boris is starting to hit a chord with Londoners. Despite being a party member I wasn't sure what benefit he could bring to London. But over the last couple of months he has methodically torn through a lot of Ken's policies, and targeted areas of concerns for Londoners.

Roll on May.

It's......Boris

Boris Johnson has won the London Mayoral candidate selection battle by an unsurprising landslide.

The votes cast were:
Boris Johnson: 15,661 votes
Victoria Borwick: 1,869
Andrew Boff: 1,674
Warwick Lightfoot: 609

No matter which way you vote, you cannot deny that at least the next mayoral election will be entertaining.

Forgetting the basics

Another day, and another promise about housing. This time is was London Mayor Ken Livingstone spouting forth saying that he will pledge to have 50,000 new homes built in the London area.

But, in the usual Labour style of government he will simply make the pledge and put the pressure on the local councils to build them. Red Ken's targets are set out in his draft housing strategy which will go out for consultation before becoming law in 2008.

To date many councils have failed to hit his over the top targets he blames it on "individual councils who've been resisting development because they're worried the people coming into the area won't vote for them." A claim which is nothing short of rubbish. The reason for resistance is that local boroughs are starting to realise that the current infrastructure of council services simply will not cope. A perfect example is the ongiong situation in Chafford Hundred, where thousands of new family homes have been built, but there isn't any new school places for their kids.

So instead of barking at the councils for not building the houses, he should perhaps look at the services the boroughs need to provide for all of these new households, instead of trying to play party politics all of the time.

It's just a car.

Please let it be true

I have just spotted on the SKY News "Breaking News" strapline that the House of Lords has just voted to restrict the Mayor of London to two terms in office. If I read that correctly, that means that London could finally be rid of Ken!

Please, Please, Please be true.

Update: It's mostly true, as the BBC has tonight reported. The Lods did vote for an amendment to the GLA bill, call for the term of Mayor to be capped. I just hope it becomes law, London derserves better.

McDonnell attacks Livingstone's Dream

Failed leadership contender John McDonnell has finally gone back to his day job of backbencher, and already turned the screw on an old back bench buddy, Ken Livingstone. John McDonnell has tabled a motion (EDM 1706) against TfL's decision to close 40 ticket offices across the London Underground network, which is a direct result of of Ken's "Oyster" dream.

In his motion he states:

"That this House is alarmed that London Underground intends to close 40 ticket offices and to drastically reduce the opening hours of dozens of more ticket offices; notes the concerns expressed by passenger groups and trade unions at the proposals; is further concerned that the closures will remove an essential service to passengers, make passengers feel more vulnerable and lead to increased assaults on staff; believes that the proposals are ill-thought out; and therefore urges Transport for London to withdraw these unnecessary and dangerous cuts."

I can't really add much more that, he sums it up quite well.

Ken meets Havana's Mayor.

He saddles up to the anti-American lefties in South America so much that this could be true.

Hat-tip to The Spine

Ken's "not-so-green" emissions counter

London Mayor Livingstone Ken has really outdone himself, with flagrant hypocrisy with his latest "green" gimmick.

As part of his "DIY Planet Repairs" campaign launch earlier today, he revealed a very large LED screen displaying a counter, which is counting the quantity of CO2 emissions being produced, and wasted, by Londoners.

Some of the ideas to for Londoners include switching off lights, and unplugging electrical items. However, the question has to be asked "how much CO2 is being produced to power this counter".

I would bet that if Ken switched his CO2 counter off, there would be a lot less CO2 produced. He really hasn't got a clue when it comes to green issues, every attempt he makes ends up producing higher emissions.


Also posted on Anyone But Ken.

Another one-sided contract

Prepare yourselves, I'm going to break with my morals and do something that is quite rare. Agree with Ken Livingstone.

Metronet, or Craponet as I commonly refer to them as, the consortium tasked under the massively flawed PPP to refurbish the London Underground system are demanding £600m from taxpayers to fund their £1.2billion overspend on refurbishment works. Metronet, which consists of Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Thames Water, EDF Energy and Atkins, has abandoned hope of reaching a settlement after London mayor Ken Livingstone told them that the problem was of their own making. Basically sying that they should shove their request.

Now, Ken (for once) has a bloody good point. Craponet's overspend it down to the way they operate. After all, before starting any refurbishment project they conduct a survey, then hold a survey of the survey, then survey the findings of that survey, and then hold another survey to see if the findings of the findings are suitable to start the project. You can see where this is going can't you. But it doesn't end there.

Once the project actually begins Craponet flood the place with more contractors than is required, botch the repairs and then have to start again. Anyone who uses Tower Hill station will notice that.

So, how is it London Underground or TfL's fault? Well, quite frankly it isn't. But that hasn't stopped them trying to claim half of that overspend back. According to today's business section of the Times, Livingstone will be forced by the Underground's public-private partnership arbiter Chris Bolt to pay well over half the reported cost overruns of up to £1.2bn which it incurred in its first four and a half years of operation.

However what I find bizarre is that after Ken wasted all that money trying to get the PPP overturned in the courts, only to be told that the contract was water-tight, Craponet seem to be perfectly able to request a review of its 30-year contract in order to get its hands on our money.

Seems a little bit of a one-sided contract that Labour negotiated for London.

New Anti-Ken Campaign is launched

Internet TV station, 18 Doughty Street, has just launched an Anti-Ken campaign Ad highlighting the failings of Mayor Ken.

Click HERE to view the 18 Doughty Street ad, and then click HERE to view the sources for every allegation made.